As India votes in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has run an especially vitriolic campaign. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speeches has demonised Indian Muslims in an attempt to consolidate Hindu votes. For many, it is the culmination of a decade of attacks, physical and rhetorical, against India’s largest minority community.
In this episode of The State of the Republic, activist and author Harsh Mander discusses what life is like for Muslim citizens in India today. His guests are veteran journalist Ziya us Salam, lawyer and legal scholar Shahrukh Alam and young writer Zeyad Masroor Khan.
Salam said that each time he returns to his country after travels abroad, he quietly bends down to touch the soil of his land because it is the country he so loves. “I don’t need the certificate of a Hindutva practitioner of my love for my country,” he said.
Karwan e Mohabbat has initiated a series of video discussions on the state of the Indian republic. The series is called Yeh Daag Daag Ujala, in tribute to the iconic poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz.